Now that SimplyE is here, if you have a smart phone there's no excuse not to be reading everywhere you go! If you're not sure what to pick from the 300,000 titles available, let our staff offer some suggestions.Read More ›

The New York Public Library just released SimplyE, a new app that gives NYPL cardholders the ability to browse, borrow, and read more than 300,000 e-books from the Library’s collections in just a few easy steps.Read More ›

Shakespeare’s language can be a challenge for fluent English speakers. If you’re an English language learner, you might think that Shakespeare is not for for you, but there are many different ways you can learn about his work, his life, and his language and improve your English skills. Read More ›

The Yearbook of the United Nations—published by the Department of Public Information and available at the NYPL—stands as the authoritative reference work on the activities and concerns of the organization. Read More ›

My friends and colleagues Ruth Rodriguez at the Francis Martin Library and Lauren Lampasone in Reference and Research Services have both written excellent blog posts, including ones that detail how to get free ebooks from eNYPL to your Kindle. Recently both the library and Overdrive have redesigned interfaces, and so some of the great screen captures on those useful instructional blogs have changed.Read More ›

Every year it's the same thing. "Buy my super-duper awesome/hallowed/glorious razzle-dazzle technology coated in gold-flecked app sauce because we're the best and the rest stink!" Nice sales pitch? Eh. Overwhelming? Yep. Confusing for some? Oh yeah. It can leave you feeling like this:

And it only gets more frenzied during the holiday shopping season as everyone from Apple to LG trots out their blank glass slabs and requests, nay DEMANDS we glue our eyeballs to a screen the size of a comic book. Hopefully this guide will take some of the mystery out of your

When you check out an ebook from the library, you get to keep it for the full loan period (7, 14 or 21 days) before the file is no longer accessible to you.

Which means you will never get an overdue fee!

But there may be times when you want to return a book early once you finish it, decide you don't like it, or want to make room to check out more books — and that way the next person in line for it will have access that much sooner. Think of it as being a good digital neighbor.

It's now easier to download and request holds on EPUB, PDF, Kindle and e-audio, music and video (a.k.a. OverDrive) while in the library catalog, BiblioCommons. You no longer have to sign in to a separate site with your barcode.

Your electronic holds and checked out items will appear alongside physical books and materials you have out, so you can better prioritize your must-read list!

Here's an overview of the changes.

Here you can see an ebook and a print book appearing together in search results. Choose "Check availability," "Request